Rick Darlington leaving Apopka is troubling sign for Florida high school football | Commentary

Rick Darlington, one of the greatest high school football coaches in Central Florida history, won’t just be driving his family and his pick-up truck from Apopka to Enterprise, Ala.; he’ll be traveling back in time to a simpler place where his new school is better suited for a man from the old school.

There are many reasons Darlington announced earlier this week he is leaving A-P-K — where he has won three state championships and compiled a 167-47 record during 17 seasons with the Blue Darters — but I believe the main one is because Florida has become rootless and rudderless in the realm of high school athletics.

The open-enrollment rules passed by the state legislature two years ago have opened the door for a flash flood of high school athletes transferring from one school or to another without regard to commitment or community or to what school district they actually live in.

“I feel the legislature, when they made that rule, ruined high school athletics,” Darlington said on our Open Mike radio show. “At Apopka, we’ve always built things on pride and loyalty and integrity and being a good man and sitting in the front of your class and wearing a tie on Tuesdays and saying, ‘Yes sir.’ These are things we believe are part of building men.

“Those things have sort of become punchlines when you have other schools where kids can go and act a whole different way. If kids don’t like the way I think they should act, they can just go somewhere else. It tears at what I believe is the fabric of high school sports; where you play for your team and your town and the people you grew up with; where you try to do great things and make your hometown proud of you.

“That’s what we had at Apopka,’” he added. “The kids grew up together, they won state championships together and the faculty and the town loved ’em. It’s getting harder and harder to keep kids home if they don’t like the way things are being done or if another school looks shinier and provides them with the flavor of the month.”

Former Apopka athletics director Fred Priest told me once: "Other schools have really good walk-on programs while we have a walk-off program."

Darlington, you see, builds character and has little tolerance for characters. He doesn’t just coach football; he teaches life. He demands structure and doles out discipline, no matter if you’re the stud running back or the second-team long-snapper.

He has been known to suspend his best players for weeks if they break the rules. These days, those kids don’t have to endure Darlington’s discipline; they can just transfer somewhere else … and then somewhere else … and then somewhere else. While Darlington preaches tough love, many kids would rather take easy street.

It’s not just a coincidence Apopka High has posted back-to-back four-loss seasons since the transfer rules have taken effect and has finished behind nearby Wekiva in the district standings the past two seasons.

Darlington has never been willing to compromise on what he believes a coach should be. He has often said being a high school football coach is a “calling,” not a profession. Yes, he will make significantly more money (about $115,000 per year) in Alabama — a state where great high school coaches are paid handsomely — but I believe Darlington leaving Apopka is more about his values than his value.

Enterprise High School is a big school in a small town in a state where football just means more. Darlington is a country boy who laments the fact that Orlando’s rapid growth in recent years is starting to swallow up Apopka and rob it of its small-town charm.

“If you took Apopka and dropped it up there southwest of Lake City, it would be perfect for me,” Darlington says. “… Enterprise is sort of what I’ve always dreamed of in a place.”

Even so, he wasn’t looking to leave Apopka, but when his own legendary high school coach — Lakeland’s Bill Castle — recommended him for the job at Enterprise, Darlington became intrigued. It’s never easy leaving a place you love; a place where four of your kids have graduated and another is a high school junior; a place where the faculty and fans have embraced and appreciated the way you not only built a program but built young men.

“A lot of times when you play for a coach who is demanding of you, you don’t appreciate it too much while you’re playing, but down the road you start to realize, ‘Oh my God, what an impact!’ ” Darlington says. “It makes you feel good when you get texts and phone calls from dozens and dozens of players who tell you how important our program was in their lives.

“Coach Castle had that sort of impact on me … and making a difference in kids’ lives is the only reason I ever wanted to be a high school coach. It’s great to win and I want to win every game, but I’ve always said building men is how you win.”

Pride, loyalty, heart, hustle, character and commitment.

Some of you may roll your eyes and think each of those words is a punch line.

But for so many troubled Apopka kids he saved through the years, they have been a life line.

Rick Darlington may be leaving for a new school, but he’ll forever be old school.